Green gold: Amirudin checking a fresh batch of nipah leaves at his shop in Muar, Johor.
MUAR: What was supposed to be a temporary source of income during desperate times turned out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to Amirudin Amat.
The 47-year-old father of three used to operate a stall selling banana cheese fritters along Jalan Salleh in Muar until his business suffered a huge blow due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When the movement control order (MCO) ended and I was able to reopen, I found it really hard to attract customers.
“I could no longer cope with the high cost of running the stall and decided to just shut it down for good some time in 2021.
“At that time, I also had a part-time job of collecting nipah leaves to be sold to otak-otak traders.
“Since I had no other source of income, I decided to spend more time collecting the leaves but I did not expect the business to grow so well,” he told The Star.
Amirudin said he used to spend his weekends collecting nipah leaves in the seven years that he was running the stall.
“It started when a friend of mine, who sells otak-otak, asked if I could help him find someone who could collect nipah leaves. I offered to do it myself since I had some free time on the weekends.
“Later on, other otak-otak traders reached out to me to get nipah leaves but since I was running the stall, I could only supply the leaves to three traders.
“When I closed my stall, I was able to collect the leaves more frequently and that was when I saw that the business has so much potential, especially since Muar is famous for otak-otak,” he said.
He said he started expanding his business slowly.
He rented a shop in the middle of last year and has since employed 10 workers to help with collecting, cutting and delivering the leaves to his customers.
“Currently, I have over 30 customers from all over Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and even Singapore, but the majority of them are from Muar.
“In a day, we can produce about 1,700kg of nipah leaves harvested from about 10 areas. Each area will only be harvested once a month to allow the leaves to grow,” he said.
While banana and coconut leaves are also used to wrap otak-otak, he said most traders in Muar preferred nipah leaves as they do not tear easily.
“Once harvested, the leaves will be cleaned and cut according to the customer’s request. The leaves are sold in baskets weighing 9kg and are priced between RM25 and RM28,” he said.
